


we are beautiful, no matter what they say。

by aesterismo



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:26:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesterismo/pseuds/aesterismo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Investigation Team are not-quite fallen angels that were destined to meet on earth in 2011 and only Souji can see their wings growing and changing with each day's quiet passage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are beautiful, no matter what they say。

Souji didn’t have a pair of wings to call his own, but it pleased him to see everyone else’s growing bigger and more beautiful by the day.

Naoto’s wings, the tiniest of all of his friends, held little to no color in them for as long as Souji had known her.  But just last week, her stone-still wings began to flutter and the tips were tinged with a deep royal violet.  Naoto insisted with a delicate rose tinge to her cheeks that it had absolutely nothing to do with Valentine’s Day having come to pass (in which Souji had done his part in helping Kanji write a love letter for the petite-winged girl, an event at the time that he had no doubt would end well for the both of them; they had been skirting the issue of love for far long enough, after all).  Souji still thought it was the start of a wonderful change in Naoto, who walked with her shoulders raised just a little bit higher and her cap pressed just a little less tightly to her head - who was becoming every bit as proud of herself as Souji was.

Teddie’s wings were also small, but their width seemed to stretch further and further along the small of his back with each passing day.  They’re starting to show their true color, a pale robin’s egg blue.  Teddie insisted on a more suitable color, a more _manly_ color that would match his inner spirit better (he was more self-conscious about his slender physique and his high tenor than he would ever let on to the others; the only reason that Souji knew it, really, was because Teddie held him in such high regard that admitting it to his sensei was only, in his own words, ‘natural’), but Souji assured him that it suits the puerile boy just fine, since his eyes were almost the same color as his eyes now - eternally bright and as boundless to souji as the clear daytime skies with opportunity.

Rise’s wings held so many feathers that she was constantly molting, which was less of a source of embarrassment for her that one would expect.  Then again, even after she stepped down from her idol position, Souji knew she preferred to keep her insecurities hidden, frightened of the the people who might take advantage of her.  But Rise was proud of her pale pink wings, adorned with thick feathers that trailed behind her everywhere she went.  Every feather that drifted into the wind, Souji thought, was a part of Rise (not ‘Risette’ or ‘Ricchan’ or any of the things that people called, accused, mistook her for), and every feather was just as much a part of her as the different sides of her that she had left behind, impressions that she made on others - and every side of her, to Souji, was just as lovely as her pretty full wings and her beautiful smile.

Kanji hated his wings since he was young, an intense blue and black combination, but as of late his wings were glowing with a decidedly different color altogether.  When he stood beside the others, his medium-blue and gold feathers stood out like a sore thumb, an impressive display that Teddie couldn’t stop making puns over and Yosuke even envied nowadays.  Of course, Kanji was trying his best to appear unamused by the whole ordeal (for a boy his age, he was unusually tall on top of unusually…well-endowed in terms of his wingspan, and it oftentimes got in the way when he was hunched over his desk with a new sewing project), but Souji knew that Kanji couldn’t have been more proud to have a claim to fame of his own, to have something he alone could feel proud of, and a new source of strength - found with a group of friends who accepted him for everything that he was and everything that he could become.

Yukiko, whose deep red wings offered no apparent room for change, was perhaps the most unusual case Souji had ever known.  They were as large as they were dazzling, a brilliant hue out-shadowed by no one else that Souji could think of.  but for all their brilliance, Souji had never thought Yukiko’s wings looked as perfect as they did when she stood beside Chie’s even larger ones, which were now emerald in tone and nearly translucent since the day that she and Yukiko accepted their darker sides.  Perhaps it was because the two of them were so close (for as long as Souji had known them, they always had been), but the circumstances they had gone through together now bound their lives and the matched sheen of their contrasting wings to the point where they could have melded into a single entity and no one would know the difference.

But while all of his friends’ wings were growing into the unique forms that they would inevitably become, he wondered why Yosuke’s hadn’t grown at all since he and Souji met.

Sure, Yosuke’s wings looked a touch brighter after his own struggle with his Shadow.  They were still dyed the same sunset shades as they always had, orange-gold combinations changing just enough to mirror any shift in his emotions.  Souji watched him grow from a boy into a young man, becoming more tolerant and then understanding, becoming less impulsive and more contemplative, becoming every bit as admirable as Souji knew he had the potential to be.  But still, Yosuke’s wings did not grow.

Yosuke figured they had finished growing already, at ease with the moderate size of them, but Souji had other theories.

After all, Souji had begun to feel the vague tremors at night against his back, where two slight protrusions in the once-unmarred skin grew more prominent by the day, and could only imagine what color his wings would be once they finally emerged.

After all, Souji had begun to notice a certain warmth seeking shelter from everywhere but the quickly beating organ at the center of his chest, gliding their way through the rest of him every time yosuke stood a little bit closer to him or hesitantly gripped his hand back whenever the silver-haired teen reached out to him.

After all, Souji believed in things like fate, even if it was a silly and romantic notion at best - and he liked the thought that Yosuke was unconsciously waiting for his wings to appear and develop and be his even more perfect match.


End file.
